PR 5567 



1877 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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' She came to the village cliurch, 
And sat by a pillar alone. " 



a It I 



ALFRED TENNYSON, 



CllustrateU. 




BOSTON: 
JAMES R.OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 

Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, &• Co. 

1877' 






/g?/ 



" It is my wish that with MESSRS. TiCKNOR AND FIELDS 
alone the right of pubhshing my books in America should rest." 

Alfred Tennyson. 



SOURCE UNKNOWN 
MAY 2 8 1S25 



University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
Cambridge. 



^Ji 



CONTENTS. 

Page 
Part 1 11 

Part II 70 

Part III 88 





HjIiUSTRATIONS. 



She came to the village church, 
And sat by the pillar alone " 



. Frontispiece. 



Page 
I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood " . 13 



Come into the garden, Maud ' 




MAtfG. 



*i^2J2XSg^ 



MAUD. 

PART I. 
I. 
I. 



HATE the dreadful hollow behind the 

little wood, 
Its lips ill the field above are dabbled 
with blood-red heath, 
The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror 

of blood, 
And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers 
"Death." 

II. 

Eor there in the ghastly pit long since a bodj 

was found. 
His who had given me life — O father ! O God ! 

was it well ? — 



12 MAUD. 

Mangled, and flatten'd, and crusli'd, and dinted 

into the ground : 
There yet lies the rock that fell with him when 

he fell. 

III. 

Did he fling himself down ? who knows ? for a 

vast speculation had fail'd, 
And ever he mutter' d and madden'd, and ever 

wann'd with despair, 
And out he walk'd when the wind like a broken 

worldling wail'd, 
And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands 

drove thro' the air. 



IV. 

I remember the time, for the roots of my hair 

were stirr'd 
By a shufiled step, by a dead weight trail' d, by 

a whisper'd fright. 
And my pulses closed their gates with a shock 

on my heart as I heard 
The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the 

shuddering night. 




I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood." 



MAUD. 15 

V. 

Villany somewhere ! wliose ? One says, we 

are villains all. 
Not he : his honest fame should at least by me 

be maintain'd : 
But that old man, now lord of the broad estate 

and the Hall, 
Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left 

us flaccid and drain'd. 

VI. 

Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace ? 
we have made them a curse, 

Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is 
not its own ; 

And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it bet- 
ter or worse 

Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on 
his own hearthstone ? 

VII. 

But these are the days of advance, the works 

of the men of mind. 
When who but a fool would liave faith in a 

tradesman's ware or his word ? 



16 MAUD. 

Is it peace or war ? Civil war, as I think, and 

that of a kind 
The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the 

sword. 

VIII. 

Sooner or later I too may passively take the 

print 
Of the golden age — why not? I have neither 

hope nor trust ; 
May make my heart as a millstone, set my face 

as a flint. 
Cheat and be cheated, and die : who knows ? 

we are ashes and dust. 



IX. 

Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the 
days gone by. 

When the poor are hovell'd and hustled to- 
gether, each sex, like swine, 

Wlien only the ledger lives, and when only 
not all men lie ; 

Peace in her vineyard — yes ! — but a company 
forges the wine. 



MAUD. 17 

X. 

And the vitriol madness flushes up in the 

ruffian's head, 
Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the 

trampled wife. 
And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the 

poor for bread. 
And the spirit of murder works in the very 

means of life, 

XI. 

And Sleep must lie down arm'd, for the villa- 
nous centre-bits 

Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the 
moonless nights, 

While another is cheating the sick of a few last 
gas])s, as he sits 

To pestle a poison'd poison behind his crimson 

^ lights. 

XII. 

When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for 
a burial fee, 

And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of chil- 
dren's bones. 



18 MAUD. 



Is it peace or war ? bet ter, war ! loud war l)y 

land and by sea, 
War with a thousand battles, and shaking a 

hundred thrones. 



XIII. 

For I trust if an enemy's fleet came yonder 
round by the hiH, 

And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three- 
decker out of tlie foam, 

That the smooth-faced snubnosed rogue would 
leap from his counter and till. 

And strike, if he could, were it but with his 
cheating yardwand, home. — 

XIV. 

What ! am I raging alone as my father raged 
in his mood ? 

Must / too creep to the hollow and dash my- 
self down and die 

Rather than hold by tlie law that I made, 
nevermore to brood 

On a horror of shatter'd limbs and a wretched 
swindler's lie ? 



MAUD. 19 

XV. 

Would there be sorrow for me? there was love 

in the passionate shriek, 
Love for the silent thing that had made false 

haste to the grave — 
Wrapt in a cloak, as I saw him, and thought 

he would rise and speak 
And rave at tlie lie and the liar, ah God, as he 

used to rave. 

XVI. 

I am sick of the Hall and the hill, I am sick of 

the moor and the main. 
Wliy should I stay ? can a sweeter chance ever 

come to me here ? 
O, having the nerves of motion as well as the 

nerves of pain, 
Were it not wise if I fled from the place and 

the pit and the fear ? 

XVII. 

Workmen up at the Hall ! — they are coming 

back from abroad ; 
Tlie dark old place will be gilt by the touch of 

a millionnaire : 



20 MAUD. 

I liave lieard, I know not whence, of the sin- 
gular beauty of Maud ; 

I plaj'd with the girl when a child ; she prom- 
ised then to be fair. 



XVIII. 

Maud with her venturous climbings and tum- 
bles and childish escapes, 

Maud the delight of the village, the ringing joy 
of the Hall, 

Maud with her sweet purse-mouth when my 
father dangled the grapes, 

Maud the beloved of my mother, the moon- 
faced darling of all, — 

XIX. 

What is she now ? My dreams are bad. She 
may bring me a curse. 

No, there is fatter game on the moor; she will 
let me alone. 

Thanks, for the fiend best knows whether wo- 
man or man be the worse. 

I will bury myself in myself, and the Devil may 
pipe to his own. 



MAUD. 21 



II. 



Long Lave I sigli'd for a calm : God graut I 

may find it at last ! 
It will never be broken by Maud, she has nei- 
ther savor nor salt, 
But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when 

her carriage past, 
Perfectly beautiful : let it be granted her : 

where is the fault ? 
All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, 

not to be seen) 
Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly 

null, 
Dead perfection, no more ; nothing more, if it 

had not been 
For a chance of travel, a paleness, an hour's 

defect of the rose. 
Or an underlip, you may call it a little too ripe, 

too full. 
Or the least little delicate aquihne curve in a 

sensitive nose, 
From which I escaped heart-free, with the least 

little touch of spleen. 



22 MAUD. 



III. 



Cold and clear-cut face, why come you so cru- 
elly meek, 
Breaking a slumber iu which all spleenful folly 

was drown'd, 
Pale with the golden beam of an eyelash dead 

on the tjheek, 
Passionless, pale, cold face, star-sweet on a 

gloom profound ; 
Womanlike, taking revenge too deep for a 

transient wrong 
Done but in thought to your beauty, and ever 

as pale as before 
Growing and fading and growing upon me 

without a sound. 
Luminous, gemlike, ghostlike, deathlike, half 

the night long 
Growing and fading and growing, till I could 

bear it no more. 
But arose, and all by myself in my own dark 

garden ground, 
Listening now to the tide in its broad-flung 

shipwrecking roar, 
Now to the scream of a madden'd beach dragg'd 

down by the wave. 



MAUD. 23 

Walk'd ill a wintry wind by a gliastly glimmer, 

and found 
The shining daffodil dead, and Orion low in 

his grave. 



IV. 



A MILLION emeralds break from the ruby- 
budded lime 

In the little grove where I sit — ah, wherefore 
cannot I be 

Like things of the season gay, like the bountiful 
season bland. 

When the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of 
a softer elinie, 

Half-lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent 
of sea. 

The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of 
the land ? 

II. 

Below me, there, is the village, and looks how 

quiet and small ! 
And yet bubbles o'er like a city, with gossip, 

scandal, and spite ; 



24 MAUD. 

Aud Jack ou his alehouse bench has as many 

lies as a Czar ; 
And here on tlie landward side, by a red rock, 

glimmers the Hall ; 
And up in the high Hall-garden I see her pass 

like a light ; 
But sorrow seize me if ever that light be my 

leading star ! 

III. 
When have I bow'd to her father, the wrinkled 

head of the race ? 
I met her to-day with her brother, but not to 

her brother I bow'd : 
I bow'd to his lady-sister as she rode by on the 

moor; 
But the fire of a foolish pride flash'd over her 

beautiful face, 

child, you wrong your beauty, believe it, in 

being so proud ; 
Your father has wealth well-gotten, and I am 
nameless and poor. 

IV. 

1 keep but a man and a maid, ever ready to 

slander and steal: 



MAUD. 25 

I know it, and smile a hard-set smile, like a 
stoic, or like 

A wiser epicurean, and let tlie world have its 
way : 

For nature is one with rapine, a harm no 
preacher can heal ; 

The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the spar- 
row spear'd by the shrike, 

And the whole little wood where I sit is a 
world of plunder and prey. 

V. 

We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty 
fair in her flower ; 

Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an un- 
seen hand at a game 

That pushes us off from the board, and others 
ever succeed ? 

Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here 
for an hour ; 

We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin 
at a brother's shame ; 

However we brave it out, we men are a little 
breed. 



26 MAUD. 

VI. 

A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Mas- 
ter of Earth, 

For liim did liis high sun flame, and Lis river 
billowing ran, 

And he felt himself in his force to he Nature's 
crowning race. 

As nine months go to the shaping an infant 
ripe for his birth. 

So many a million of ages have gone to the 
making of man : 

He now is first, but is he the last ? is he not 
too base ? 

VII. 

The man of science himself is fonder of glory, 
and vain, 

An eye well-practised in nature, a spirit bound- 
ed and poor ; 

The passionate heart of the poet is whirl'd into 
folly and vice. 

I would not marvel at either, but keep a tem- 
perate brain ; 

For not to desire or admire, if a man could 
learn it, were more 

Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in 
a garden of spice. 



MAUD. 27 

VIII. 

Eor the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis bid 

by the veil. 
Who knows the ways of the world, how God 

will bring them about ? 
Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world 

is wide. 
Shall I weep if a Poland fall ? shall I shriek if 

a Hungary fail ? 
Or an infant civilization be ruled with rod or 

with knout ? 
I have not made the world, and He that made 

it will guide. 

IX. 

Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet wood- 
land ways, 

Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless 
peace be my lot, 

Par-off from the clamor of liars belied in the 
hubbub of lies ; 

Prom the long-neck'd geese of the world that 
are ever hissing dispraise 

Because their natures are little, and, whether 
he heed it or not. 

Where each man walks with his head in a 
cloud of poisonous flies. 



28 MAUD. 

X. 

And most of all would I flee from the cruel 
maduess of love. 

The honey of poison-flowers and all the meas- 
ureless ill. 

All Maud, you milkwhite fawn, you are all 
unmeet for a wife. 

Your mother is mute in her grave as her image 
in marble above ; 

Your father is ever in Loudon, you wander 
about at your will ; 

You have but fed on the roses, and Iain in the 
lilies of life. 



A VOICE by the cedar tree, 

In the meadow under the Hall ! 

She is singing an air that is known to me, 

A passionate ballad gallant and gay, 

A martial song like a trumpet's call ! 

Singing alone in the morning of life, 

In the happy morning of life and of May, 

Singing of men that in battle array, 



MAUD. 29 

Ready in heart and ready in liand, 
March with banner and bugle and fife 
To the death, for their native land. 



Maud with her exquisite face, 
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky. 
And feet like sunny gems on an English green, 
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace. 
Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die. 
Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and 

mean, 
And myself so languid and base. 



Silence, beautiful voice 

Be still, for you only trouble the mind 

With a joy in which I cannot rejoice, 

A glory I shall not find. 

Still ! I will hear you no more, 

Por your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice 

But to move to the meadow and fall before 

Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore. 

Not her, who is neither courtly nor kind. 

Not her, not her, but a voice. 



30 MAUD. 



YI. 



Morning arises stormy and pale, 

No sun, but a wannish glare 

In fold upon fold of hueless cloud, 

And the budded peaks of the wood are bow'd 

Caught and cufF'd by the gale : 

I had fancied it would be fair. 

II. 
Whom but Maud should I meet 
Last night, when the sunset burn'd 
On the blossom'd gable-ends 
At the head of the village-street. 
Whom but Maud should I meet ? 
And she touch'd my hand with a smile so 

sweet 
She made me divine amends 
For a courtesy not return'd. 



And thus a delicate spark 
Of glowing and growing light 



MAUD. 31 

Tliro' tlie livelong hours of the dark 

Kept itself warm in the lieart of my dreams, 

Keady to burst in a color'd flame ; 

Till at last when the morning came 

In a cloud, it faded, and seems 

But an ashen-gray delight. 

IV. 

What if with her sunny hair. 

And smile as sunny as cold, 

Slie "meant to weave me a snare 

Of some coquettish deceit, 

Cleopatra-like as of old 

To entangle me when we met. 

To have her lion roll in a silken net 

And fawn at a victor's feet. 



V. 

Ah, what shall I be at fifty 
Should Nature keep me alive. 
If I find the world so bitter 
When I am but twenty-five ? 
Yet, if she were not a cheat. 
If Maud were all that she seem'd, 



32 MAUD. 

And her smile were all tliat I dream'd. 
Then the world were not so bitter 
But a smile could make it sweet. 



What if tho' her eye seem'd full 
or a kind intent to me, 
What if that dandy-despot, lie. 
That jewell'd mass of millinery, 
That oil'd and curl'd Assyrian Bull 
Smelling of musk and of insolence. 
Her brother, from whom I keep aloof. 
Who wants the finer politic sense 
To mask, tho' but in his own behoof. 
With a glassy smile his brutal scorn — 
What if he had told her yestermorn 
How prettily for his own sweet sake 
A face of tenderness might be feign' d. 
And a moist mirage in desert eyes. 
That so, when the rotten hustings sliake 
In another month to his brazen lies, 
A wretched vote may be gain'd. 

VII. 

For a raven ever croaks, at my side, 

Keep watch and ward, keep watch and ward, 



MAUD. 33 

Or tliou wilt prove their tool. 
Yea too, myself from myself I guard, 
For often a man's own angry pride 
Is cap and bells for a fool. 

VIII. 

Perhaps the smile and tender tone 

Came out of her pitying womanhood, 

For am I not, am I not, here alone 

So many a summer since she died. 

My mother, who was so gentle and good ? 

Living alone in an empty house. 

Here half-hid in the gleaming wood. 

Where I hear the dead at midday moan, 

And the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse, 

And my own sad name in corners cried. 

When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown 

About its echoing chambers wide. 

Till a morbid hate and horror have grown 

Of a world in which I have hardly mixt, 

And a morbid eating lichen fixt 

On a heart half-turn'd to stone. 

IX. 

O heart of stone, are you flesh, and caught 
By that you swore to withstand ? 



34 MAUD. 

For wl)at was it else witliin me wron^lit 
But, I fear, the new strong wine of love, 
That made my tongue so stammer and trip 
When I saw the treasured splendor, her hand, 
Come sliding out of lier sacred glove. 
And the sunlight broke from her lip ? 

X. 

I have play'd with her when a child ; 

She remembers it now we meet. 

Ah well, well, well, I may be beguiled 

By some coquettish deceit. 

Yet, if she were not a cheat, 

If Maud were all that she seem'd. 

And her smile had all that I dream'd, 

Tiien the world were not so bitter 

But a smile could make it sweet. 

VTI. 

T. 

Did I hear it half in a doze 

Long since, I know not where ? 

Did I dream it an hour ago, 
When asleep in this arm-chair ? 



MAUD. 35 



II. 



Men were drink iiip^ together, 
Drinking and talking of me ; 

" Well, if it prove a girl, the boy 
Will have plenty : so let it be." 

III. 

Is it an echo of something 
Read with a boy's delight. 

Viziers nodding together 
In some Arabian night ? 



Strange, that I hear two men, 
Somewhere, talking of me ; 

" Well, if it prove a girl, my boy 
Will have plenty : so let it be." 



VIII. 

She came to the village church, 
And sat by a pillar alone ; 
An anfjel watchin"- an urn 



36 MAUD. 

Wept over her, carved in stone ; 

And once, but once, she lifted her eyes, 

And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blush'd 

To find they were met by my own ; 

And suddenly, sweetly, my heart beat stronger 

And thicker, until I heard no longer 

The snowy-banded, dilettante. 

Delicate-handed priest intone ; 

And thought, is it pride, and mused and sigh'd 

" No surely, now it cannot be pride." 

IX. 

I WAS walking a mile, 
More than a mile from the shore, 
Tlie sun look'd out with a smile 
Betwixt the cloud and the moor, 
And riding at set of day 
Over the dark moor land, 
Rapidly riding far away. 
She waved to me with her hand. 
There were tAvo at her side. 
Something flash'd in the sun, 
Down by the hill I saw them ride. 
In a moment they were gone : 



MAUD. 37 

Like a sudden spark 
Struck vaiuly in tbe night, 
Tiieu returns the dark 
With no more hope of light. 



X. 

I. 

Sick, am I sick of a jealous dread ? 
Was not one of the two at her side 
This new-made lord, whose splendor plucks 
The slavish hat from the villager's head ? 
Whose old grandfather has lately died. 
Gone to a blacker pit, for whom 
Grimy nakeduess dragging his trucks 
And laying his trams in a poison'd gloom 
Wrought, till he crept from a gutted mine 
Master of half a servile shire. 
And left his coal all turn'd into gold 
To a grandson, first of his noble line, 
Rich in the grace all women desire. 
Strong in the power that all men adore. 
And simper and set their voices lower. 
And soften as if to a girl, and hold 
Awe-stricken breaths at a work divine, 



38 MAUD. 

Seeing his gewgaw castle shine. 
New as his title, built last year. 
There amid perky larches and pine. 
And over the sullen-purple moor 
(Look at it) pricking a cockney ear, 

II. 

What, has he found my jewel out ? 
For one of the two that rode at her side 
Bound for the Hall, I am sure was he : 
Bound for the Hall, and I think for a bride. 
Blithe would her brotiier's acceptance be. 
Maud could be gracious too, no doubt. 
To a lord, a captain, a padded shape, 
A bought commission, a waxen face, 
A rabbit mouth that is ever agape — 
Bought ? what is it he cannot buy ? 
And therefore splenetic, personal, base, 
A wounded thing with a rancorous cry. 
At war with myself and a wretched race, 
Sick, sick to the heart of hfe, am I. 



Last week came one to the county town. 
To preach our poor little army down. 



MAUD. 39 

x\iid play the game of tlie despot kings, 
Tho' the state has done it and thrice as well : 
This broad-brimm'd hawker of holy things, 
Whose ear is cramm'd with his cotton, and 

rings 
EveE ill dreams to the chink of his pence, 
This huckster put down war ! cau he tell 
Whether war be a cause or a consequence ? 
Put down the passions that make earth Hell ! 
Down with ambition, avarice, pride, 
Jealousy, down ! cut off from the mind 
The bitter springs of anger and fear ; 
Down too, down at your own fireside, 
With the evil tongue and the evil ear, 
For each is at war with mankind. 



IV. 



I wish I could hear again 

The chivalrous battle-song 

That she warbled alone in her joy ! 

I might persuade myself then 

She would not do herself this great wrong, 

To take a wanton, dissolute boy 

For a man and leader of men. 



40 MAUD. 

V. 

All God, for a man with heart, head, hand. 
Like some of the simple great oues gone 
For ever and ever by. 
One still strong man in a blatant land. 
Whatever they call him, what care I, 
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, — one 
Who can rule and dare not lie. 

VI. 

And ah for a man to arise in me, 
That the man I am may cease to be ! 



XI. 



LET the solid ground 
Not fail beneath my feet 

Before my life has found 

What some have found so sweet 
Then let come what come may, 
What matter if I go mad, 

1 shall have had my day. 



MAUD. 41 



II. 



Let the sweet heavens endure, 
Not close and darken above me 

B:fore I am quite quite sure 
That there is one to love me ; 

Then let come what come may 

To a life that has been so sad, 

I shall have had my day. 



XII. 



Birds in the high Hall-garden 
When twilight was falling, 

Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud, 
They were crying and calling. 



Where was Maud ? in our wood ; 

And I, who else, was with her, 
Gathering woodland lilies, 

Myriads blow together. 



42 MAUD. 

III. 

Birds in our wood sang 
Ringing tliro' tlie valleys, 

Maud is here, here, here 
In among the lilies. 



I kiss'd her slender hand, 
She took the kiss sedately ; 

Maud is not seventeen, 
But she is tall and stately. 

V. 

I to cry out on pride 

Who have won her favor ! 

Maud were sure of Heaven 
If lowliness could save her. 

VI. 

1 know the way she went 
Home with her maiden posy. 

For her feet have touch'd the meadows 
And left the daisies rosy. 



MAUD. 



VII. 



43 



Birds in the liigli Hall-garden 
Were crying and calling to her, 

Wiiere is Maud, Maud, Maud, 
One is come to woo her. 

VIII. 

Look, a horse at the door, 

And little King Charley snarling, 
Go back, my lord, across the moor. 

You are not her darling. 



XIII. 



Scorn'd, to be scorn'd by one that I scorn, 
Is that a matter to make me fret ? 
Tliat a calamity hard to be borne ? 
Well, he may live to hate me yet. 
Fool that I am to be vext with his pride ! 
I past him, I was crossing iiis lands ; 
He stood on the path a little aside ; 
His face, as I grant, in spite of spite. 



44 MAUD. 

Has a broad-blown comeliness, red and wliite, 
xVnd six feet two, as I think, he stands ; 
But his essences turn'd the live air sick. 
And barbarous opulence jewel-thick 
Sunn'd itself on his breast and his hands. 



Who shall call me ungentle, unfair, 
I long'd so heartily then and there 
To give him the grasp of fellowship ; 
But while I past he was humming an air, 
Stopt, and tlien with a riding whip 
Leisurely tapping a glossy boot, 
And curving a contumelious lip, 
Gorgonized me from head to foot 
With a stony British stare. 

III. 

Why sits he here in his father's chair ? 
That old man never comes to his place : 
Shall I believe him ashamed to be seen ? 
For only once, in the village street, 
Last year, I caught a glimpse of his face, 
A gray old wolf and a lean. 



MAUD. 45 

Scarcely, now, would I call liim a cheat ; 
For then, perhaps, as a child of deceit, 
Sh.^ might by a true descent be untrue ; 
And Maud is as true as Maud is sweet : 
Tlio' I fancy her sweetness only due 
To the sweeter blood by the other side ; 
Her mother has been a thing complete, 
However she came to be so allied. 
And fair without, faithful within, 
Maud to him is nothing akin : 
Some peculiar mystic grace 
Made her only the child of her mother. 
And heap'd the whole inherited sin 
On that huge scapegoat of the race. 
All, all upon the brother. 

IV. 

Peace, angry spirit, and let him be ! 
Has not his sister smiled on me ? 



XIV. 

I. 
Maud has a garden of roses 
And lilies fair on a lawn : 



46 MAUD. 

There she walks in lier state 
And tends upon bed and bower. 
And thither I clinib'd at dawn 
And stood by her garden-gate ; 
A lion ramps at the top, 
He is clasp t by a passion-flower. 



Maud's own little oak-room 

(Which Maud, like a precious stone 

Set in the heart of the carven gloom. 

Lights with herself, when alone 

She sits by her music and books, 

And her brother lingers late 

With a roystering company) looks 

Upon Maud's own garden-gate : 

And I thought as 1 stood, if a hand, as white 

As ocean-foam in the moon, were laid 

On the hasp of the window, and my Delight 

Had a sudden desire, like a glorious ghost, to 

glide. 
Like a beam of tlie seveutli Heaven, down to 

my side, 
There were but a step to be made. 



MAUD. 47 



The fancy flatter'd my mind. 

And again seeni'd overbold ; 

Now I thought that she cared for me. 

Now I thought she was kind 

Only because she was cold. 

IV. 

I heard no sound where I stood 

But the rivulet on from the lawn 

Running down to my own dark wood ; 

Or the voice of the long sea- wave as it swell'd 

Now and then in the dim-gray dawn ; 

But I look'd, and round, all round the house 

I beheld 
The death-white curtain drawn ; 
Pelt a horror over me creep. 
Prickle my skin and catch my breath. 
Knew that the death-white curtain meant but 

sleep. 
Yet I shudder'd and thought like a fool of the 



sleep of death. 



48 MAUD. 



XV. 



So dark a mind within me dwells, 
And I make myself such evil cheer, 

That it" / be dear to some one else, 

Then some one else may have much to fear; 

But if / be dear to some one else, 

Then I should be to myself more dear. 

Shall I not take care of all that I think. 

Yea ev'n of wretched meat and drink. 

If I be dear, 

If I be dear to some one else ? 



XVI. 



This lump of earth has left his estate 
The lighter by the loss of his weight ; 
And so that he find what he went to seek, 
And fulsome Pleasure clog him, and drown 
His heart in the gross mud-honey of town. 
He may stay for a year who has gone for 

week : 
But this is the day when I must speak, 



MAUD. 49 

And I see my Oread coming down, 
O this is the day ! 

beautiful creature, what am I 
That I dare to look her way ; 
Think I may liold dominion sweet. 

Lord of the pulse that is lord of her breast. 
And dream of her beauty with tender dread. 
From the delicate Arab arch of her feet 
To the grace that, bright and liglit as the crest 
Of a peacock, sits on her shining head, 
And she knows it not : 0, if she knew it. 
To know her beauty might half undo it. 

1 know it the one bright thing to save 
My yet young life in the wilds of Time, 
Perhaps from madness, perhaps from crime, 
Perhaps from a selfish grave. 



What, if she be fasten'd to this fool lord. 

Dare I bid her abide by her word ? 

Should I love her so well if she 

Had given her word to a thing so low ? 

Shall I love her as well if she 

Can break her word were it even for me ? 

I trust that it is not so. 



50 MAUD. 



III. 



Catch not my breath, O clamorous heart, 
Let not my tongue be a thrall to my eye. 
For I must tell her before we part, 
I must tell her, or die. 



XYII. 

Go not, happy day, 

From the shining fields. 
Go not, happy day. 

Till the maiden yields. 
Rosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks. 

And a rose her mouth. 
When the happy Yes 

Falters from her lips. 
Pass and blush the news 

O'er the blowing ships. 
Over blowing seas. 

Over seas at rest. 
Pass the happy news. 

Blush it thro' the West : 



MAUD. 5V 

Till the red man dance 

By liis red cedar tree, 
And the red man's babe 

Leap, beyond the sea. 
Blush from West to East, 

Blush from East to West, 
Till the West is East, 

Blush it thro' the West. 
Rosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks. 

And a rose her mouth. 

XVIII. 

I. 

I HAVE led her home, my love, my only friend. 

There is none like her, none. 

And never yet so warmly ran my blood 

And sweetly, on and on 

Calming itself to the long-wish'd-for end, 

EuU to the banks, close on the promised good. 

II. 
None like her, none. 

Just now the dry-tongued laurels' pattering talk 



52 MAUD. 

Seem'd her light foot along the garden walk, 
And shook my heart to think she comes once 

more ; 
But even then I heard her close the door, 
The gates of Heaven are closed, and she is 

gone. 

III. 
There is none like her, none. 
Nor will be when our summers have deceased. 
O, art thou sighing for Lebanon 
In the long breeze that streams to thj delicious 

East, 
Sighing for Lebanon, 

Dark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here increased. 
Upon a pastoral slope as fair, 
And looking to the South, and fed 
With honey'd rain and delicate air. 
And haunted by the starry head 
Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate, 
And made my life a perfumed altar-flame ; 
And over whom thy darkness must have spread 
With such delight as theirs of old, thy great 
Forefathers of the thornless garden, there 
Shadowing the snow-limb'd Eve from whom 

she came. 



MAUD. 53 

IV, 

Here will I lie, while tliese long branches 

sway, 
And you fair stars that crown a happy day 
Go in and out as if at merry play. 
Who am no more so all forlorn. 
As when it seem'd far better to be born 
To labor and the mattock-harden'd hand. 
Than nursed at ease and brought to under- 
stand 
A sad astrology, the boundless plan 
That makes you tyrants in your iron skies, 
Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes. 
Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand 
His nothingness into man. 



But now shine on, and what care I, 
Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl 
The countercharm of space and hollow sky. 
And do accept my madness, and would die 
To save from some slight shame one simple 
girl. 



54 MAUD. 



Would die ; for sulleii-seemiug Death may 

give 
More life to Love than is or ever was 
In our low world, where yet 't is sweet to 

live. 
Let no one ask me how it came to pass ; 
It seems that I am haj)|)y, that to uie 
A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, 
A purer sapphire melts into the sea. 



Not die ; but live a life of truest breath. 

And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs. 

O, why should Love, like men in drinking- 
songs, 

Spice bis fair banquet with the dust of death ? 

Make answer, Maud my bhss, 

Maud made my Maud by that long lover's 
kiss. 

Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this ? 

" Tlie dusky strand of Death inwoven here 

With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more 
dear." 



MAUD. 55 



VIII. 



Is tliat enchanted moan only tlie swell 
Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay ? 
And hark the clock within, the silver knell 
Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white, 
And died to live, long as my pulses play ; 
But now by this my love has closed her sight 
And given false death her hand, and stol'n 

away 
To dreamful wastes where footless fancies 

dwell 
Among the fragments of the golden day. 
May nothing there her maiden grace atfright ! 
Dear heart, I feel wiih thee the drowsy spell. 
My bride to be, my evermore delight. 
My own heart's heart and ovvnest own farewell ; 
It is but for a litile space I go : 
And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell 
Beat to the noiseless music of the night ! 
Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow 
Of your soft splendors that you look so bright ? 
/have climb'd nearer out of lonely Hell. 
Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, 
Beat with my heart more blest than heart can 

tell. 



53 MAUD. 

Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe 
That seems to draw — but it shall not be so ; 
Let all be well, be well. 



XIX. 



Her brother is coming back to-niglit, 
Breaking up my dream of delight. 

II. 
My dream ? do I dream of bliss ? 
1 have walk'd awake with Truth. 

when did a morning shine 
So rich in atonement as this 
YoY my dark-dawning youth, 
Darken'd watching a mother decline 
And that dead man at her heart and mine 
Por who M-as left to watch her but I ? 
Yet so did I let my freshness die. 

III. 

1 trust that I did not talk 
To gentle Maud in our walk 



MAUD. 57 

(For often in lonely wanderings 

1 have cursed him even to lifeless things) 

But I trust that I did not talk, 

Not touch on her father's sin : 

I 'm sure I did but speak 

Of my mother's faded cheek 

When it slowly grew so thin. 

That I felt she was slowly dying 

Text with lawyers and harass'd with debt : 

For how often I caught her with eyes all wet, 

Shaking her head at her son and sighing 

A world of trouble within ! 

IV. 

And Maud too, Maud was moved 

To speak of the mother she loved 

As one scarce less forlorn, 

Bying abroad and it seems apart 

From him who had ceased to share her heart. 

And ever mourning over the feud. 

The household Fury sprinkled with blood 

By which our houses are torn : 

How strange was what she said. 

When only Maud and the brother 

Hung over her dying bed — ■ 



58 MAUD. 

Tiiat Maud's dark father and mine 

Had hound us one to the other, 

Betrothed us over their wme, 

On the day when Maud was born ; 

Seal'd her mine from her first sweet breath. 

Mine, mine by a right, from birth till death, 

Mine, mine — our fathers have sworn. 



But the true blood spilt had in it a heat 
To dissolve the precious seal on a bond, 
Tliat, if left uncancell'd, had been so sweet : 
And none of us thought of a something beyond, 
A desire that awoke in the heart of the child. 
As it were a duty done to the tomb, 
To be friends for her sake, to be reconciled ; 
And I was cursing them and my doom, 
And letting a dangerous tliought run wild 
While often abroad in the fragrant gloom 
Of foreign ch.urches — I see her there, 
Bright English lily, breathing a prayer 
To be friends, to be reconciled 1 

VI. 

But then what a flint is he ! 
Abroad, at Florence, at Borne, 



MAUD. 59 

I find wlienever slie toucli'd on me 
Tiiis brother bad buigb'd ber down, 
And at last, when each came home. 
He had darken'd into a frown, 
Chid her, and forbid ber to speak 
To me, her friend of the years before ; 
And this was what bad redden'd her cheek 
When I bow'd to her on the moor. 

VII. 

Yet Maud, altlio' not bUnd 

To the faults of his heart and mind, 

I see she cannot but love him, 

And says he is rongh but kind. 

And wi?!ies me to approve him. 

And tells me, when she lay 

Sick once, with a fear of ^vorse, 

That he left his wine and horses and play, 

Sat with her, read to her, night and day. 

And tended her like a nurse. 

VIII. 

Kind ? but the death-bed desire 
Spurn'd by this heir of the liar — 



60 MAUD. 

Rougli but kind ? yet I know 

He luis plotted against me in this. 

That he plots against me still. 

Kind to Maud ? that were not amiss. 

Well, rough but kind ; why, let it be so 

!For shall not Maud have her will ? 

IX. 

Tor, Maud, so tender and true. 

As long as my life endures 

I feel I shall owe you a debt, 

That I never can hope to pay ; 

And if ever I should forget 

That I owe this debt to you 

And for your sweet sake to yours ; 

O then, what then shall I say ? — 

If ever I should forget, 

May God make me more wretched 

Than ever I have been yet ! 



So now I have sworn to bury 
All this dead body of hate, 
I feel so free and so clear 



MAUD. ( 

By tlie loss of that dead weiglit. 

That I shall grow light-headed, I fear, 

Fantastically merry ; 

But that her brother comes, like a blight, 

Oil my fresh hope, to the Hall to-iiight. 

XX. 

I. 

Strange, Ihat I felt so gay. 
Strange, that / tried to-day 
To beguile her melancholy ; 
The Sultan, as we name him, — 
She did not wish to blame him — 
But he vext her and perplext her 
With his worldly talk and folly : 
Was it gentle to reprove her 
For stealing out of view 
From a little lazy lover 
Who but claims her as his due ? 
Or for cliilling his caresses 
By the coldness of her manners. 
Nay, the plainness of her dresses ? 
Now I know her but in two. 
Nor can pronounce upon it 



G2 MAUD. 

If one should ask me whether 
The habit, hat, and feather. 
Or the frock and gypsy bonnet 
Be the neater and completer ; 
For nothing can be sweeter 
Than maiden Maud in either. 

II. 

But to-morrow, if we live, 
Our ponderous squire will give 
A grand political dinner 
To half the squirehngs near; 
And Maud will wear her jewels. 
And the bird of prey will hover, 
And tiie titmouse hope to win her. 
With his chirrup at her ear. 

III. 

A grand political dinner 

To the men of many acres, 

A gathering of the Tory, 

A dinner and then a dance 

For the maids and marriage-makers. 

And every eye but mine will glance 

At Maud in all her glory. 



MAUD. 65 



'For I am not invited. 
But, with the Sultan's pardon, 
I am all as well delighted, 
Tor I know her own rose-garden. 
And mean to linger in it 
Till the dancing will be over ; 
And tlien, O then, come out to me 
For a minute, but for a minute, 
Come out to your own true lover. 
That your true lover may see 
Your glory also, and render 
All homage to his own darling. 
Queen Maud in all her splendor. 

XXI. 

Rivulet crossing my ground. 

And bringing me down from the Hall 

This garden-rose that I found, 

Forgetful of Maud aud me. 

And lost in trouble and moving round 

Here at the head of a tinkling fall. 

And trying to pass to the sea ; 

Rivulet, born at the Hall, 



6G MAUD. 

My Maud lias sent it by tliee 
(If I read lier sweet will riglit) 
On a blushing mission to me, 
Saying in odor and color, " Ah, be 
Among the roses to-night." 



XXII. 



Come into the garden, Maud, 

For the black bat, night, has flown, 

Come into the garden, Maud, 
I am here at the gate alone ; 

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad. 
And the musk of the roses blown. 

II. 

For a breeze of morning moves, 
And the planet of Love is on high, 

Beginnhig to faint in the light that she loves 
On a bed of daffodil sky. 

To faint in the light of the sun she loves. 
To faint in his light, and to die. 



MAUD. 67 



All night have the roses heard 

The flute, violin, bassoon ; 
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd 

To the dancers dancing in tune ; 
Till a silence fell with the waking bird. 

And a hush with the setting moon. 



I said to the lily, " There is but one 

With whom she has heart to be gay. 
When will the dancers leave her alone ? 

She is weary of dance and play." 
Now half to the setting moon are gone, 

And half to the rising day ; 
Low on the sand and loud on the stone 

The last wheel echoes away. 



V. 

I said to the rose, " The brief night goes 
In babble and revel and wine. 

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those, 
For one that will never be thine ? 



68 MAUD. 

But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose, 
" For ever and ever, mine," 



And the soul of the rose went into my blood, 
As the music clash'd in the hail ; 

And long by tlie garden lake I stood, 
For I heard your rivulet fall 

From the lake to the meadow and on to the 
wood, 
Our wood, that is dearer than all ; 

VII. 

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet 
That whenever a March-wind sighs 

He sets the jewel-print of your feet 
In violets blue as your eyes. 

To the woody hollows in which we meet 
And the valleys of Paradise. 

VIII. 

The slender acacia would not shake 
One long milk-bloom on the tree ; 

Tiie white lake-blossom fell into the lake 
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea; 



MAUD. 69 

But the rose was awake all night for your sake, 

Knowing your promise to me ; 
The lilies and roses were all awake, 

They sigh'd for the dawn and thee. 

IX. 

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls. 
Come hither, the dances are done, 

In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls. 
Queen lily and rose in one ; 

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls. 
To the flowers, and be their sun. 

X. 

There has fallen a splendid tear 

From the passion-flower at the gate. 
She is coming, my dove, my dear ; 

She is coming, my life, my fate; 
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near " : 

And the white rose weeps, "She is late" ; 
The larkspur listens, " I hear, I hear" ; 

And the lily whispers, " I wait." 

XI. 

Siie is coming, my own, my sweet; 
Were it ever so airy a tread. 



'0 MAUD. 

My heart would hear her and beat. 
Were it earth in an earthy bed ; 

My dust would hear her and beat. 
Had I lain for a century dead ; 

Would start and tremble under her feet. 
And blossom in purple and red. 



PART II. 



fjHE fault was mine, the fault was 
mine " — 
Why am I sitting here so stunn'd 
and still, 
Pluckingthe harmless wild-flower on the hill ? — 
It is this guilty hand ! — 
And there rises ever a passionate cry 
From underneath in tlie darkening land — 
What is it, that has been done ? 
O dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky, 
The fires of Hell brake out of tby rising sun. 



MAUD. 71 

The fires of Hell and of Hate ; 

Eor she, sweet soul, liad hardly spoken a word, 

When her brother ran in his rage to the gate, 

He came with a babe-faced lord ; 

Heap'd on her terms of disgrace. 

And while she wept, and I strove to be cool, 

He fiercely gave me the lie, 

Till I with as fierce an anger spoke. 

And he struck me, madman, over the face, 

Struck me before the languid fool. 

Who was gaping and grhniing by : 

Struck for himself an evil stroke ; 

Wrought for his house an irredeemable woe ; 

For front to front in an hour we stood, 

A.nd a million horrible bellowing echoes boke 

Prom the red-ribb'd hollow behind the wood. 

And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless 

code. 
That must have life for a blow. 
Ever and ever afresh they seem'd to grow. 
Was it he lay there with a fading eye ? 
" The fault was mine," he whisper'd, " fly ! " 
Then glided out of the joyous wood 
The ghastly Wraith of one that I know; 
And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry. 



72 MAUD. 

A cry for a brother's blood : 
It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I die, 
till I die. 

II. 
Is it gone ? my pulses beat — 
What was it ? a lying trick of the brain ? 
Yet I thought I saw her stand, 
A shadow there at my feet. 
High over the shadowy land. 
It is gone ; and the heavens fall in a gentle rain, 
When they should burst and drown with del- 
uging storms 
The feeble vassals of wine and anger and lust. 
The little hearts that know not how to forgive : 
Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just. 
Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous 

worms. 
That sting each other here in the dust ; 
We are not worthy to live. 



II. 

I. 

See what a lovely shell, 
Suiall and pure as a pearl. 



MAUD. 73 

Lying close to my foot, 
rrail, but a work divine, 
Made so tairily well 
With delicate spire and whorl. 
How exquisitely minute, 
A miracle of design ! 

II. 
What is it ? a learned man 
Could give it a clumsy name. 
Let him name it who can. 
The beauty would be the same. 

III. 
The tiny cell is forlorn. 
Void of the little living will 
That made it stir, on the shore. 
Did he stand at the diamond door 
Of his house in a rainbow frill ? 
Did he push, when he M-as uncurl'd, 
A golden foot or a fairy horn 
Thro' his dim water-world ? 

IV. 

Slight, to be crushed with a tap 
Of my finger-nail ou the sand, 



74 MAUD. 

Small, but a work divine, 
Trail, but of force to withstand. 
Year upon year, the shock 
Of cataract seas that snap 
The three decker's oaken spine 
Athwart the ledges of rock, 
Here on the Breton strand ! 



Breton, not Briton ; here 

Like a shipwreck'd man on a coast 

Of ancient fable and fear — 

Plagued with a flitting to and fro, 

A disease, a hard mechanic ghost 

That never came from on high 

Nor ever arose from below. 

But only moves with the moving eye, 

Flying along the land and the main — 

Why should it look like Maud ? 

Am I to be overawed 

By what I cannot but know 

Is a juggle born of the brain ? 

VI. 

Back from the Breton coast. 
Sick of a nameless fear. 



MAUD. 



75 



Back to the dark sea-line 
Looking, thinking of all I have lost ; 
An old song vexes my ear ; 
But that of Lamech is mine. 

VII. 

For years, a measureless ill. 
For years, for ever, to part — 
But she, she would love me still ; 
And as long, O God, as she 
Have a grain of love for me. 
So long, no doubt, lio doubt. 
Shall I nurse in my dark heart. 
However weary, a spark of will 
Not to be trampled out. 

VIII. 

Strange, that the mind, when fraught 
With a passion so intense 
One would tliink that it well 
Might drown all life in the eye, — 
Tliat it should, by being so overwrought. 
Suddenly strike on a sharper sense 
Por a shell, or a flower, little things 



76 MAUD. 

Wliicli else "would have been past by 1 

And now I remember, I, 

When he lay dying there, 

I noticed one of his many rings 

(For he liad many, poor worm) and thought 

It is his mother's hair. 



Who knows if he be dead ? 

Whether I need have fled ? 

Am I guilty of blood ? 

However this may be. 

Comfort her, comfort her, all things good, 

While I am over the sea ! 

Let me and my passionate love go by, 

But speak to her all things lioly and high. 

Whatever happen to me ! 

Me and my harmful love go by ; 

But come to her waking, find her asleep, 

Powers of the height. Powers of the deep. 

And comfort her tho' I die. 

III. 

Courage, poor heart of stone ! 



I will not ask thee why 



MAUD. 77 

Thou canst not understand 

Tliat thou art left for ever alone : 

Courage, poor stupid heart of stone. — 

Or if I ask thee why, 

Care not thou to reply : 

She is but dead, and the time is at hand 

When thou shalt more than die. 



IV. 



THAT 't were possible 
After long grief and pain 
To find the arms of my true love 
Round me once again ! 



II. 

When I was wont to meet her 
In the silent woody places 
By the home that gave me birth. 
We stood tranced in long embraces 
Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter 
Than anything on earth. 



78 MAUD. 

III. 
A shadow flits before me, 
Not thou, but like to thee ; 
Ah Christ, that it were possible 
For one short hour to see 
The souls we loved, that they might tell us 
What and where they be. 



IV. 

It leads me forth at evening, 

It lightly winds and steals 

In a cold white robe before me, 

When all my spirit reels 

At the shouts, the leagues of lights, 

And the roaring of the wheels. 



Half the night I waste in sighs. 
Half in dreams I sorrow after 
The delight of early skies ; 
In a wakeful doze I sorrow 
For the hand, the lips, the eyes, 
For the meeting of the morrow, 



MAUD. 79 



The delight of happy laugliter. 
The delight of low replies. 



VI. 

'T is a morning pure and sweet. 
And a dewy splendor falls 
On the little flower that clings 
To the turrets and the walls ; 
'T is a morning pure and sweet. 
And the light and shadow fleet ; 
She is walking in the meadow, 
And the woodland echo rings ; 
In a moment we shall meet ; 
She is singing in the meadow. 
And the rivulet at her feet 
Ripples on in light and shadow 
To the ballad that she sings. 

VII. 

Do I hear her sing as of old, 

My bird with the shining head, 

My own dove with the tender eye ? 

But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry, 

There is some one dying or dead. 



80 MAUD. 

And a sullen thunder is roll'd ; 
For a tumult shakes the city, 
And I wake, my dream i$ fled ; 
In the shuddering dawn, behold, 
Without knowledge, without pity. 
By the curtains of my bed 
That abiding phantom cold. 



VIII. 

Get tliee hence, nor come again, 
Mix not memory with doubt, 
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain. 
Pass and cease to move about ! 
'T is the blofe upon the brain 
That will show itself without. 



Then I rise, the eavedrops fall. 
And the yellow vapors choke 
The great city sounding wide ; 
The day comes, a dull red ball 
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke 
On the misty river-tide. 



MAUD. 



Thro' the hubbub of the market 

I steal, a wasted frame, 

It crosses here, it crosses there, 

Thro' all that crowd confused and loud, 

The shadow still the same ; 

And on my heavy eyelids 

My anguish hangs like shame. 



Alas for her that met me, 

Tliat heard me softly call. 

Came glimmering thro' the laurels 

At the quiet evenfall. 

In the garden by tlie turrets 

Of the old manorial hall. 



"Would the happy spirit descend, 
From the realms of light and song. 
In the chamber or the street. 
As she looks among the blest, 
Should I fear to greet my friend 



MAUD. 



Or to say " forgive the wrong," 
Or to ask her, " take me, sweet. 
To the regions of thy rest " ? 



But the broad light glares and beats. 

And the shadow flits and fleets 

And will not let me be ; 

And I loathe the squares and streets, 

And the faces that one meets, 

Hearts with no love for me : 

Always I long to creep 

Into some still cavern deep. 

There to weep, and weep, and weep 

My whole soul out to thee. 

V. 

I. 
Dead, long dead, 
Long dead ! 

And my heart is a handful of dust. 
And the wheels go over my head. 
And my bones are shaken with pain, 
Tor into a shallow grave they are thrust. 



MAUD. 83 

Only a yard beneath tlie street, 

And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat, 

Tlie hoofs of the horses beat, 

Beat into my scalp and my brain, 

With never an end to the stream of passing feet, 

Driving, hurrying, marrying, burying. 

Clamor and rumble, and ringing and clatter. 

And here beneath it is all as bad, 

For I thought the dead had peace, but it is 

not so ; 
To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad ? 
But up and down and to and fro, 
Ever about me the dead men go ; 
And then to hear a dead man chatter 
Is enough to drive one mad. 



II. 

Wretchedest age, since Time began. 

They cannot even bury a man ; 

And tho' we paid our tithes in the days that 

are gone, 
Not a bell was rung, not a prayer was read ; 
It is that which makes us loud in the world of 

the dead ; 



84 MAUD. 

There is none that does his work, not one ; 
A toucli of their office might have sufficed. 
But the churchmen fain would kill their church, 
As the churches have kill'd their Christ. 

III. 

See, there is one of us sobbing, 

No limit to his distress ; 

And another, a lord of all things, praying 

To his own great self, as I guess ; 

And another, a statesman there, betraying 

His party-secret, fool, to the press ; 

And yonder a vile physician, blabbing 

The case of his patient — all for what ? 

To tickle the maggot born in an empty head. 

And wheedle a world that loves him not, 

For it is but a world of the dead. 

• 

IV. 

Nothing but idiot gabble ! 

For the prophecy given of old 

And then not understood. 

Has come to pass as foretold ; 

Not let any man think for the public good, 



MAUD. 85 

But babble, merely for babble. 

For I never wliisper'd a private affair 

Within the hearing of cat or mouse, 

No, not to myself in the closet alone, 

But I heard it shouted at once from the top of 

the house ; 
Everything came to be known : 
Who told liini we were there ? 



V. 

Not that gray old wolf, for he came not back 
From the wilderness, full of wolves, where he 

used to lie ; 
He has gather'd the bones for his o'ergrown 

whelp to crack ; 
Crack them now for yourself, and howl, and 

die. 

VI. 

Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip. 

And curse me the British vermin, the rat ; 

I know not whether he came in the Hanover 

ship, 
But I know that he lies and listens mute 
In an ancient mansion's crannies and holes : 



86 MAUD. 

Arsenic, arsenic, sure, would do it, 

Except that now we poison our babes, poor 

souls ! 
It is all used up for that. 

VII. 

Tell him now : she is standing here at my head ; 

Not beautiful now, not even kind ; 

He may take her now ; for she never speaks 

her mind. 
But is ever the one thing silent here. 
She is not of us, as I divine ; 
She comes from another stiller world of the 

dead. 
Stiller, not fairer than mine. 

VIII. 

But I know where a garden grows, 

Fairer than auglit in the world beside. 

All made up of the lily and rose 

That blow by night, when the season is good. 

To the sound of dancing music and flutes : 

It is only flowers, they had no fruits. 

And I almost fear they are not roses, but blood ; 

For the keeper was one, so full of pride. 

He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride ; 



MAUD. 87 

For he, if he had not been a Sultan of brutes. 
Would lie have that hole in his side ? 

IX. 

But what will the old man say ? 

He laid a cruel snare in a pit 

To catch a friend of mine one stormy day ; 

Yet now I could even weep to think of it ; 

For what will the old man say 

"When he comes to the second corpse in the pit ? 

X. 

Friend, to be struck by the public foe, 
Then to strike him and lay him low. 
That were a public merit, far. 
Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin ; 
But the red life spilt for a private blow — 
I swear to you, lawful and lawless war 
Are scarcely even akin. 

XI. 

O me, why have they not buried me deep 

enough ? 
Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough, 
Me, that was never a quiet sleeper ? 
Maybe still I am but half-dead ; 



88 MAUD. 

Then I cannot be wliollv dumb ; 

I will cry to the steps above ray head, 

And somebody, surely, some kind heart will 

come 
To bury me, bury me 
Deeper, ever so little deeper. 



PART III. 



I. 

Y life has crept so long on a broken 
wing 
Thro' cells of madness, haunts of 
horror and fear, 



That I come to be grateful at last for a little 
thing : 

My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of 
year 

When the face of night is fair on the dewy 
downs. 

And the shining dafibdil dies, and the Char- 
ioteer 



MAUD. 89 

And starry Gemini hang like glorions crowns 
Over Orion's grave low down in the Avest, 
That like a silent lightning under the stars 
She seem'd to divide in a dream from a band 

of the blest, 
And spoke of a hope for the world in the com- 
ing wars — 
" And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble have 

rest. 
Knowing I tarry for thee," and pointed to 

Mars 
As he glow'd like a ruddy shield on the Lion's 
breast. 



And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear 
delight 

To have look'd, tho' but in a dream, upon eyes 
so fair, 

That had been in a weary world my one thing 
bright ; 

And it was but a dream, yet it lighten'd my 
despair 

When I thought that a war would arise in de- 
fence of the right. 



90 MAUD. 

That an iron tyranny now sliould bend or cease, 
The glory of manhood stand on his a\icient 

height, 
Nor Britain's one sole God be the million- 

iiaire : 
No more shall commerce be-all in all, and 

Peace 
Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, 
And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase. 
Nor the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful shore. 
And the cobweb woven across the cannon's 

throat 
Shall shake its threaded tears iu the wind no 

more. 



And as months ran on and rumor of battle 

grew, 
" It is time, it is time, passionate heart," 

said I 
(For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure 

and true), 
" It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye, 
That old hysterical mock-disease should die." 
And I stood on a giant deck and mix'd my 

breath 



MAUD. 91 

With a loyal people shouting a battle-cry, 
Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly 
Far into the North, and battle, and seas of 
death. 



Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims 
Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of 

gold. 
And love of a peace that was full of wrongs 

and shames. 
Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told ; 
And hail once more to the banner of battle 

unroll' d ! 
Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall 

weep 
For those that are crusli'd in the clash of jar- 
ring claims, 
Yet God's just wrath shall be wreak'd on a 

giant liar ; 
And many a darkness into the light shall leap, 
And sliine in the sudden making of splendid 

names. 
And noble thought be freer under the sun. 
And the heart of a people beat with one de- 



92 MAUD. 

For tlie peace, that I deem'd no peace, Is over 
and done, 

And now by the side of the Black and the Bal- 
tic deep, 

And deathful-grinniiig mouths of the fortress, 
flames 

The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of 
fire. 

Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down 

like a wind, 
We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we 

are noble still. 
And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the 

better mind ; 
It is better to fight for the good, than to rail 

at the ill ; 
I have felt with my native land, I am one with 

my kind : 
I embrace the purpose of God and the doom 

assign' d. 



Cambridge : Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 

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